Erdogan said Sunday he is receptive to reinstating the country’s death penalty in the aftermath of the coup attempt.
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Erdogan added that the government is making “critical preparations” to take an important decision in response to the Friday coup attempt, which claimed the lives of more than 200 people and left almost 1,500 others wounded.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry also warned that Turkey must respect the law and its democratic institutions if it wanted to remain part of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.
Some voiced concern President Tayyip Erdogan – who said he was nearly killed or captured by the mutineers – was using the opportunity to consolidate his power and further a process of stifling dissent which has already caused tensions with Europe. The government accuses him of plotting the coup and wants him extradited.
A senior security official told Reuters that 8 000 police officers, including in the capital Ankara and the biggest city Istanbul, had also been removed from their posts on suspicion of links to Friday’s coup bid.
About 1,500 finance ministry officials had been suspended, a ministry official said, and CNN Turk said 30 governors and more than 50 high-ranking civil servants had been dismissed.
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said a total of 7,543 people had been detained since Friday, including 6,030 military personnel.
On Monday, Turkish prosecutors began questioning 27 generals and admirals.
Authorities have revoked the licenses of 21,000 teachers working in private education institutions who are being investigated under the same auspices, state news agency Anadolu reported. The government says a USA -based Muslim cleric was behind the coup.
The crackdown targeted not only generals and soldiers, but a wide swath of the judiciary that has sometimes blocked Erdogan, raising concerns that the effort to oust him will push Turkey even further into authoritarian rule.
Secretary of State John Kerry has said the United States will consider any extradition request for Gulen from Turkey but that Washington’s decision to extradite will be based on the strength of the evidence. Yildirim rejected that demand.
They have clashed on how to combat Islamist extremists and over actions by Erdogan’s government seen in the U.S. capital as authoritarian.
The government Monday said 208 were killed in the uprising, including 145 civilians, 60 police and three soldiers, in addition to more than 100 coup plotters. Officials previously said the overall death toll was more than 290. No military vehicles, including tanks and helicopters, were unaccounted for, Kalin said.
Erdogan’s decision to allow the resumption of flights at the Incirlik Air Base, which hosts a number of USA intelligence facilities and plays a strategic role in the fight against Islamic State militants, has averted an immediate confrontation between the two allied countries.
Gulen, the spiritual leader of the Hizmet movement – which promotes moderate Islam across dozens of countries and is dubbed a terrorist group by Erdogan – firmly denies Ankara’s charge he was behind the coup bid.
Significantly, the commander of Incirlik, General Bekir Ercan Van, was among those detained over the abortive coup.
Turkey’s deputy prime minister said dossiers containing details of Gulen’s activities have been sent to the U.S. Numan Kurtulmus would not provide details about the files but said they include the past actions of the group that Gulen leads.
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“Had I stayed 10, 15 additional minutes, I would have been killed or I would have been taken”, he said in the interview late Monday.
